From genes to sex: The many guises of human trafficking

As I write this, the Supreme Court of the United States is hearing arguments about whether a company can own a human gene. It’s not quite as sexy a topic as same-sex marriage, so we’ll likely not hear much about it during the day or on the evening news, but it strikes me as one of the most important cases SCOTUS will decide this year.

A friend wrote on Facebook the other night her extreme displeasure with human trafficking. In the context of the article to which she linked, she was talking about sex trafficking – prostitution, we used to call it, but that word has come to apply to so many other things, and trafficking is an uglier word when applied to buying and selling human resources.

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Organic and independent farmers feel under assault

An independent organic farmer tends cropsOn a trip to New England last week, my niece treated me to some really good salsa. It was made in Maine, we were in New Hampshire, and I’m now home in Pennsylvania, way south of where I can buy some.

On the other hand, there are several Mexican stores almost within walking distance of home where maybe …

Meanwhile, I was in the local discount grocery store the other night and picked up a container of Marketside Chipotle salsa. It actually has a nice flavor, and adds a pleasant bite to my favorite chips which, the way I eat the stuff, are simply devices for scooping large dollops of salsa the way someone might otherwise use a soup spoon to scoop the favored ice cream.

If fresh salsa is what you seek, though, you probably won’t find it in a container marked “Manufactured for Marketside, a division of Walmart Stores Inc.” Continue reading Organic and independent farmers feel under assault